The Rite of Spring
by A Hopeful Voice
Summary: Using her arms as a brace against the counter to hold up her weight, she pushes herself onto her toes and tries not to remember. - The story of Natasha Romanoff.
1. Part One

**This has been published elsewhere on the internet for a long time. I've only just now had the patience to upload it here. This is supposed to be read in one sitting, as one large document. However, this site will not let me upload it as such. Therefore, it is in four smaller chunks followed by the afterword.**

 **Warnings: Implied/referenced rape, implied/reference child abuse, violence, language, etc.**

 **Please let me know if you have any questions or comments. Enjoy!**

* * *

 **The Rite of Spring**

Using her arms as a brace against the counter to hold up her weight, she pushes herself onto her toes and tries not to remember.

* * *

Ballet was an exercise in discipline. To be the best possible dancer, one must subscribe to a brutal routine of practice and nutrition. It was meant to maintain the girls' strength as well as wear them down to the point of refraining from rebellion. Each morning, the girls were woken up, attended class, ate a meager breakfast, and went on with the rest of their day. Ballet made the girls beautiful and deadly.

Natalia Alianova Romanova was the favorite of Madame. Her neck was always long, legs consistently extended to an inhuman length, her feet perfectly pointed and winged. She always stood at the front of the barre, and had the most natural looking fouettés. And then, once it was time for their other lessons, Natalia was the strongest on the mats and the most accurate shot.

But to Natalia, being the favorite was never good enough. It was the only way to survive, but it brought other attention upon her that some of the other girls never received. (Then again, she was still alive, wasn't she?)

Snow fell outside the window in the studio, and Natalia stretched out her back, feeling her vertebrae click. She picked up her pistol and aimed at the paper target hanging before her. All of her shots were deadly; she never missed. She had been trained by the Red Room for eight years. For weeks, Madame had been promising a reward for Natalia's success.

A few minutes passed, and then there was a shaking man kneeling on the ground before her. A burlap sack was covering the man's face, his hands bound with rope. One look at Madame and Natalia's order was clear. She raised her pistol and, without thinking, fired. He fell back to the floor, blood staining the burlap.

Natalia was filled with a surge of pride.

The year was 1997; she was thirteen years old.

That night, Natalia handcuffed herself to her bed and thought of the rush of adrenaline she felt when the man fell to the floor. One of the younger girls in the dormitory was crying. Natalia remembered Ariadna having been in the room when she eliminated the enemy. Based on the girl's presence, Natalia concluded the man had been the girl's father and an enemy of Russia.

Natalia had been recruited by the KGB before the fall of the Soviet Union, and she had a near-perfect memory. While her beloved country might no longer be the just land it once was, the ideals instilled in the Red Room were aligned with those of the last century. She knew what she stood for, knew what was important to her and those she idolized.

It had been roughly eight years since Natalia was adopted into the Red Room. She did not know what happened to her parents, and didn't care. She was happy in the Red Room, serving her country.

Shortly after eliminating the threat presented before her in the studio, Natalia was sent on her first mission. It was simple: meet a man at a cafe in Moscow and retrieve the information he had. Natalia found it laughably simple. When she would look back on this in later years, she would regret ever thinking an assignment simple.

Natalia waited out in the frigid Russian winter for two hours. She was not going to return to the Red Room empty handed. Natalia Romanova neverfailed. But then an enormous man arrived and treated Natalia with kindness. He introduced himself as her handler: Ivan Petrovich. They exchanged the safe words to verify identity, then she followed him back to his small home to gather the information.

She left a different girl; the only intel gained was a new understanding of how the real world worked. But Natalia was not weak and she never failed.

Lying in bed that night, Natalia had nightmares of a heavy man on top of her. She shook in the cold but did not dare cry out in fear. She knew what would happen if she showed weakness.

Madame was proud of her beautiful Natalia, and a few months after Natalia first met Ivan, Natalia was sent on her first real mission. Ivan had been training her in the ways of men and women, teaching Natalia how to use her body as the ultimate weapon. The mark was an American government official with a weakness for beautiful women. She was to seduce him, steal his briefcase with state secrets, and kill him.

Natalia succeeded.

Nights spent with Ivan were unchained, leaving her feeling more naked than simply lacking clothing. She never slept as well as she did in her icy, squeaky bed in the Red Room with its threadbare sheets and clanging pipes. The nicest hotels in the world could never be comfortable to her.

Natalia felt a bead of sweat roll down her back as she sank down to the floor, arm rising into first position, then out into second as she stood back up. Up onto releve, toes resting just at her knee, let go of the barre and hold. Eight counts, twelve, sixteen, developee, hold and slowly release to lower the leg to the floor.

She could feel Madame's and Ivan's eyes on her, but forced herself to concentrate on the give and take of her muscles. Absolute control was required to be the best girl in the Red Room, and she would never achieve control if she allowed herself to be distracted with trivial things like the lack of blood between her legs. Madame would never let Natalia be anything less than careful, but did she have the same kind of control over Ivan?

Distracted, Natalia's weight shifted forward over her box and her ankle gave out, sending Natalia to the floor. The other girls in the room gasped, but continued with the work. Bozhe moy.

Natalia could not rise to her feet in time; she was not injured, just shocked. Madame, face red with fury, stormed over to Natalia and yanked her to her feet by a vice-like grip on her arm. Dragged into the hall, Natalia tripped over an uneven floorboard and scraped her knee on the hard floor, nicking a run in her tights.

Once in the corridor outside the studio, Madame released Natalia and backhanded her into the wall. Natalia hit the wall and barely managed to keep from falling. Ivan clicked his tongue at her and once Natalia was righted, Madame slapped Natalia with her other palm.

"You show promise and I recommend you to the next stage of training six months early, and this is how you repay me?" hissed Madame. "If you lose your concentration on a mission, you lose your life. If your cover slips like your balance just did, you will be captured, tortured, and killed, and no one will cry for you." To Ivan, Madame said, "Perhaps it is time you teach her proper discipline."

Natalia did not fall again.

* * *

Sometimes Tony sneaks into Natasha's private workout space and leaves teddy bears in tutus on the chair and shelves. She never says anything to him, but leaves the furry carcasses in hidden places around the Tower for him to find later. He does not know why she has a room with mirrored walls and a metal bar in the middle (not the right direction for the only kind of dancing he approves of), but never asks.

Natasha has never slept in the room provided for her, and Clint won't reveal his friend's secrets, so Tony tries to stake her out when she does sleep in the Tower. He never finds her secret bedroom, only ever finds her using the workout space to do little kid dance.

But he never hears a complaint from Natasha when he has the concrete floors redone into hardwood one weekend while she is on a mission.

* * *

Russia's history was a tale of hard winters and hardened people. Natalia was no different. She danced her way across Europe, flirting and cutting throats. No one ever suspected a teenage girl with the face of a princess and the smile of a spider. Really, it was no wonder Madame insisted on calling Natalia her "little spider." And with the reputation Natalia was quickly gaining as a dangerous woman to spend the night with, Black Widow seemed frighteningly appropriate.

Natalia bloomed into a young woman of sixteen through the hardness of her life, like a flower in the dead of winter. She followed orders without question and was the greatest success to ever come out of the Red Room. "I am so proud of you," Madame would say, trailing her fingers down Natalia's cheek. "You never fail, little spider."

But then things changed.

It was the dead of winter and she was leaving the New York City Ballet, her hands sunk deep in a black fur coat. Her heart beat steady but her mind was in the irregular rhythm of Le sacre du printemps. In five minutes, when the ballet was over, the patrons would find Rudolf Volkov in his private box, dead.

Grinning to herself, Natalia felt an uneven beat in her step as she stopped on the pavement and held her hand out for a taxi. A yellow cab stopped before her, and she climbed into the back. "JFK, please," she said, running a hand through her short, brown hair. She hated that she had to cut her hair; it was such a source of pride for Natalia.

In the terminal, the American media was starting a witch hunt for the killer of the Russian ambassador. No one suspected the charming Southern belle on her way home for her sister's wedding. Once she reached Atlanta, Natalia boarded a flight to Paris, then changed planes to Moscow. There was a floaty feeling in Natalia's stomach; she knew that after she was properly rested from this mission, she would be given the final test that would proclaim her as an official KGB agent and Red Room graduate.

There was only one girl older than Natalia: Rada. Before Natalia could undergo her final test, Rada had to complete hers. It was only because they were so close in age that Natalia and Rada often shared clothing that she found out the truth behind the final test.

She was collecting a basket of laundry when she overheard Madame explaining to Rada what had happened. The last thing that had to be done before graduating the Red Room was a procedure that sterilized the girls. Rada had never been particularly kind, so it did not surprise Natalia that she did not seem to care. Madame said that removing the possibility for distractions would make the mission easier.

Natalia's stomach sank. She had never thought of the future; she was raised knowing she had a short life expectancy and to only focus on the mission. She had never thought about having a family—a real family. The other girls in the Red Room were her sisters, Madame was like a mother to her. Had she ever had the choice of leaving the service to have her own life?

It had never occurred to Natalia, and now that she thought of it, her mind felt suddenly clearer. She had never even thought of any other life, seeing women who focused their efforts on childrearing as weak. But now, faced with the possibility of never having a family of her own, Natalia wanted it.

On the morning of her graduation exams, Natalia felt shaky. She hadn't slept well, the chill of the handcuffs sinking into her bones. Her anxiety never showed in the morning ballet class. She was steady and graceful throughout floor work, letting her drown her thoughts out with the pull of her muscles.

She passed all of her spy work tests and the "red test," and then it was time for the physical examination. If she passed this, she would undergo the surgery. Natalia tried to shake the thoughts from her mind; she had never wanted anything but this life, she only ever wanted to be the Black Widow.

But she wanted the choice.

Natalia fought dirty, but let herself make mistakes. If she failed, she would be punished, but she would have time to think this through. Natalia let her opponent hit her in the head hard enough to be knocked out: a certain failure.

When Natalia regained consciousness, the ceiling was moving above her. Madame's face appeared. "My dear little spider, you never fail. But thinking you could fool me was your greatest failure of all." To the doctors around her, Madame added, "Go ahead with the procedure."

Natalia felt no different the following day, and woke to attend the morning ballet class with the other girls, the only difference being the scar four inches below her navel.


	2. Part Two

Natasha does ballet in the mornings to keep herself fit and balanced. Sometimes Clint sits in her studio polishing his bow or watching Netflix while she works, but he is the only one who ever cares enough to wait with her.

Until Steve, that is. Steve wandered in on accident one morning and never left. He sits in the corner and reads, his eyes occasionally drifting up to watch her extend her leg towards the ceiling.

Then Bruce comes in, and goes over science things on his own.

She tells JARVIS to keep Thor out because his cheering after every exercise disturbed her focus.

Tony likes to hold his own dance parties in the room above until Pepper makes him stop.

Natasha is simply thankful none of them ask her why.

* * *

Three years passed, and Natalia was nineteen. She allowed herself to be seen enough for people to know that the Black Widow was out there and untouchable. Madame continued to be proud of Natalia's successes, and Ivan continued to educate Natalia and be her handler.

Ivan got a bad strain of influenza while on a mission in Buenos Aires, and had to be hospitalized. Natalia was told to continue to follow the mark and take him out. She was followed to Prague, but allowed it. The Black Widow was known across the globe for being indestructible.

She crossed the mark on an empty street and killed him swiftly. This was not a showy mission, but a vendetta of Madame's. Natalia was the only agent that could be trusted with such a sensitive case. Madame would be proud.

Natalia climbed a fire escape to a roof. Her damned shadow was still behind her. She grinned to herself; if he wanted a fight, she wouldn't let him make the first move. Like she suspected (men were so _typical),_ he followed her up onto the rooftops. There was a three story drop between the two of them, and she pretended to have not seen him, though she knew there was no fooling anyone with her skills; she would have noticed anybody, but clearly stealth was not this man's greatest skill.

Suddenly, Natalia ducked behind an air conditioning unit, and fired off two shots toward the tail. An arrow whizzed past her head. _What?_ Natalia was not surprised easily, but she did _not_ suspect people to still use archery. It was not even a skill that the Red Room had taught much of. What poor medieval land was this man from?

She felt a thud against the roof beneath her feet and heard an "oof." Holstering her gun, Natalia leapt out at him, hoping to take him by surprise. She tackled him, but he was bulkier than she initially thought and it took her more effort than Natalia would have liked to use. He got a good jab into her shoulder, but not enough to effectively stop her.

Natalia pushed him away from her and used his distracted momentum to land a kick on his chest. He had quick reflexes and grabbed her ankle, twisting her leg around and forcing her to the ground. She rolled out of the way of his swing, and jumped to her feet, taking advantage of his turned back to throw one of her fists against his head. He slammed against the metal unit. Natalia pulled out one of her knives and flung it so that it landed next to his ear.

"You missed," he said, turning around with his bow in his hands, an arrow ready at the string.

She smiled, a feral thing. So the man spoke Russian. Based on his awful accent and physical appearance, she figured he was American or Canadian. "I never miss," she replied. "I choose to place my target elsewhere." Natalia launched herself at him, and he released the arrow. It grazed her arm, tearing through the fabric of her sleeve and snagging her skin.

Natalia hissed but it didn't hurt.

She got another punch into his face, but he got two into hers. He was surprisingly fit. "You could at least make this a challenge for me," she teased. The man would be dead in five minutes at this rate.

He raised his eyebrows at that. The man simply pushed her, and Natalia wondered how she could have been so stupid as to stand on the downward slope of the roof. She slipped and fell, scraping her nails against the roof to try and get purchase with her fingers. The roof leveled off before the drop to the earth below, and Natalia smashed into a brick and concrete ledge, vision going black.

Roughly twenty seconds later, Natalia opened her eyes to see the head of an arrow pointed at her from a few feet away. The man smirked. "I thought spiders were supposed to be graceful," he said with laughter in his tone. He was speaking English now. "I mean, you are the Black Widow, right? That'd be awfully embarrassing if my superiors had fucked up and sent me after the wrong KGB agent."

"Go to hell," she spat in Russian.

He was stubborn and refused to speak anything other than English. "Yeah," he said, "my Russian is fucking terrible, so we're gonna go with English now. I know you can speak it, since you definitely just proved to me that you are the Widow. Though you seem awful young for someone with that many kills in your book." Natalia took a shaky breath but didn't look away. His eyebrows drew closer together and he studied her face. With an eye roll, the archer pressed his index finger against his ear and said, "Yeah, whatever, boss. You're being pretty fucking distracting."

Natalia watched him carefully, waiting for a moment where he was distracted enough for her to get the upper hand.

"How old are you?"

She didn't answer.

"Give me one reason I shouldn't kill you right now. I'm supposed to, you know."

Again, she didn't answer.

Something in the man's shoulders softened. After another moment, he slowly released the tension in the bowstring and took the arrow away. "My name is Barton. I work for SHIELD. Do you know what that is?" Natalia made no move to answer, carefully calculating. "It's an American counter-terrorism and intelligence agency. You've pissed off some important people all over the world. I was sent here to take you out." He paused. "I don't know why, but somethin's telling me to bring you in."

Natalia was excellent at hiding her emotions, but at that moment she wasn't sure if she managed to keep the surprise out of her eyes.

"Come talk to my boss at SHIELD," he—Barton—said. "No guarantees, no deals. Just talk. We could use your skills. You can't tell me you haven't ever dreamed of defecting."

Natalia hadn't ever known that was an option; she had never thought about it.

"Trust me."

She didn't, but she took his hand anyway.

* * *

In later years, Clint swears that the reason he brought her in was because he saw fire and gold in her eyes. Natasha thinks she went with him because he seemed like spring and she was tired of winter.

Of course, neither will be honest.

* * *

Natalia sat in a cold, metal chair with her hands on a cold, metal table on a massive plane. The room was soundproof, but she imagined that Barton was out there arguing with his superiors. How stupid was he to have brought her—arguably the world's _greatest_ assassin—onto a plane of American spies? She wasn't even restrained.

The door opened, and a tall, balding man walked in, closely followed by Barton. The door closed behind them, and the man sat down before Natalia. Barton stood in the corner. The man forced a smile at her, and said, "Welcome to SHIELD. I'm Agent Coulson, Barton's handler. I'm afraid we don't know your real name, Miss Widow. Or your age, or anything about you really. Now I have a passion for dramatics, but in this situation, you must see that we need some information about you if you, indeed, wish to defect to the United States."

Natalia's eyes flicked to Barton's, and he gave a subtle nod. She didn't know why she trusted him (maybe it had to do with the fact that on their way to the plane, he killed a threat she hadn't even _seen_ just as the man was about to take her out—something about recognizing snipers), but if he could have killed her and didn't, he was either very stupid or very brave. Or both.

She cleared her throat. "Natalia Romanova."

The man—Coulson—wrote something down on one of the papers he'd brought in. "Can you tell us your date of birth and nationality? Just for the records; we know you're Russian."

Natalia opened her mouth but paused. Was this a mistake? _It's too late now._ "November 22, 1984. Stalingrad."

"Technically it's Volgograd now. Just so you know." He paused, and looked up at her. "You're nineteen? Damn. Barton, where the hell did you find her again?"

"On a rooftop in Prague, sir."

Coulson made some sort of noise that Natalia could only interpret as _intrigue_ and continued scribbling. "Affiliations, including current handler?"

Ivan's face flashed before her eyes and Natalia felt his fist on her cheekbone. She answered, "KGB, but I was trained in the Red Room. My handler is—was Ivan—"

Both Barton and Coulson look at her in surprise, their eyes wide and eyebrows strung together. "I thought the Red Room was a myth."

"So did I," Coulson agreed. "You're serious, you were trained in the Red Room." It wasn't a question, but Natalia nodded anyway. "Well, damn. And here I was thinking maybe you were some sort of 0-8-4 we didn't know about. How old were you when they recruited you? How many of you are there? What kind of—" Barton cleared his throat. "Right. Sorry."

"I was five, I think, when the Red Room adopted me. There are twenty-eight of us, orphans. We were recruited for the KGB, but were selected for the Red Room program by select individuals. Even I don't know who all of them were. I—" Natalia stopped, hit by the magnitude of what she was doing. Betraying herself was one thing, but willingly giving up information she'd sworn to protect was different. What would Madame and Ivan say? Natalia reminded herself that it didn't matter; she was living for herself now. This was _good._

But she hesitated long enough for Barton to see that Natalia was uncomfortable. Watching her, he said, "Sir, I think it would be best for Miss, uh, Romanov to get some rest. We both got beat up pretty bad and this is probably a conversation that's best had after some shut eye."

Coulson looked over his shoulder at the younger agent. "Yes, good idea, Barton. I had HR prep a guest room on corridor C."

"HR, sir?"

He grinned. "I got Fitz and Simmons to do it. They're just happy to have something to do while on break from the Academy."

Natalia followed Barton into the hall, walking closely behind him as he weaved through the corridors. Other SHIELD agents passed with varying degrees of disgust on their faces when they set eyes on her, making Natalia suddenly feel very nervous. This whole thing reeked of a trap.

She realized Barton had been talking to her. "…Miss Romanov—"

"Romanova," Natalia automatically corrected. He turned his head to look at her, and she instantly felt shame. "Sorry, it's just—I'm female and that's how it's done."

The agent shrugged and continued on. "Anyway, my bunk's down the hall from yours so if you need anything, come straight to me. If anyone gives you a hard time, give them hell. Well, not literally. Within reason. Like, don't actually kick their ass, just send them to me and I'll kick their ass. At this point, we don't want Coulson to kick you off the Helicarrier. Though I don't even know if he has that authority. Hell, I don't even know if he had the authority to bring you aboard."

He was rambling, but Natalia didn't care. Having someone else's voice going through her ears was a relief from the demons in her head. Then he stopped, and held his hand up against a scanner that glowed green and unlocked the door.

"So here's your bunk. It's small, but it'll do for now," he said, letting her pass him and go into the small room. The walls were grey like everything else, and the bed was thin, but there was a door and a sense of loneliness that Natalia welcomed after a life of shared space. "Latrine's down the hall. Uh, looks like you don't have access to open the door from the inside. Guess they don't want you to wander around—"

"It's fine," Natalia interrupted. She looked at him looking at her, and was confused. There was nothing in his eyes that she recognized. She realized that in the few hours she'd known him, Barton had not once shown an interest in her. "Just…come get me in the morning. Unless you want to stay?" She placed a hand on his chest, feeling his muscles beneath his shirt: firm and nothing like Ivan, nor wiry like most of her marks.

Barton was flustered, and instinctively backed away. "Look, I'll be back in the morning. If you need anything, holler and someone'll get me. G'night."

He stepped out of the small room and the door closed before her.

Left alone, Natalia felt ashamed. What had just happened?

She had no clothes to change into, nor would she dare be caught off guard with her clothes off in the middle of the night. She was too tired to care, so Natalia simply pulled off her boots and set them at the foot of the bed. She laid back and pulled the blanket over her. It was then that she realized that she had nothing to chain her to the bed.

There had been nights in the past where she was physically free, but she was never alone. Natalia had never slept without some sort of cage.

She didn't sleep that night.

* * *

Natasha jolts awake as the engine is turned off. "We're here," Clint mutters. The sun went down hours ago and Natasha didn't mean to fall asleep, but she did. They climb out of the car and take their bags from the trunk. Walking up to the farmhouse, Natasha yawns. The porch light is the only source of light for miles, save the lamp on in the house's front window.

The door is unlocked, and they walk inside. Both took leave; Natasha is technically in Fiji and Clint is in Iowa. Though it would surprise no one to find that the two of them were on vacation together. Not that this is really a vacation.

"Hey, babe?" Clint calls out in a hushed voice. He looks around the corner and sees Laura asleep on the sofa. She stirs and Clint walks over to her. "You didn't need to wait up."

She smiles sleepily. "Yeah, but it's been a month. Kid's've been worried. 's Nat here?"

"Hey, Laura," Natasha says with a quick wave.

"Hey," Laura echoes. She stands and grabs her husband's hand. "Your room's still there. Sorry for the mess in the house. Kids'll probably hate me for not waking them up when you got here, but—"

"I love how my own children get more excited to see their Aunt Nat than their old man."

"Oh, hush," Laura says with a smile. "You know they love you. And so do I."

Natasha averts her eyes as the happy couple kisses. Ten years ago, she never would have guessed she'd ever have friends, much less a family.

* * *

Natalia went through six months of psychiatric analysis before she was put into the field, though with a very short leash. Coulson became her handler (she suspected he was the only one who volunteered) and Barton was present during all of her missions. It only took her saving Barton's life twice and his personal appeal to Director Fury that she was taken off probation and allowed to have an actual life.

But Natalia was new to this country and she wasn't even sure where she was. SHIELD had been incredibly secretive about the base's location in case she turned on them. And it wasn't like she had friends in the States. Everyone she knew in this country hated her and wanted her dead.

She knew as much from the looks people gave her in the halls as they passed. (How many SHIELD agents had she killed? She didn't even know exactly how many people she had killed. Then again—could she ever forget?)

So on her first day of freedom, Natalia was given a cell phone, a credit card, and a curfew. She made sure her SHIELD ID was in her pocket, and walked toward the entrance to the base. Natalia wasn't sure how far it was to the closest town (she was under the impression that this base was incredibly remote), but the walk would be good for her.

A car drove up behind her. The window rolled down. "Get in loser, we're going shopping," Barton said. Natalia frowned, but got in the car. After some silence, Barton sighed. "Based on your lack of a reaction, I'm gonna guess the answer to this question is negative, but please tell me that you've seen _Mean Girls_."

"That wasn't a question," Natalia pointed out.

"Yeah," said Barton, "I'm gonna take that as a no."

"Agent Barton—"

He held up a hand. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold it right there. You cannot keep calling me Agent Barton like I'm fucking Coulson—who, by the way, would be cool if you dropped the 'agent' part. Go ahead and call me Clint. All my friends do."

Natalia hesitated. "Friends?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "I mean, I'd be cool with the word 'colleagues' if you prefer, but I mean, it doesn't seem like you have a lot of friends—"

"I don't," she said quickly.

"—and I'm always game to grab a beer with a friend after work."

She was quiet for a minute, let it sink in. "Where are we going?"

Clint grinned. "A mall. It's this innovative place where vendors rent a space and fill it with their goods to be purchased by people."

Natalia glared at him. "I know what a mall is, dumb ass."

"Ooh," he exclaimed, "the Russian is capable of snark! I always appreciate that in a woman."

A small smile crept onto her face. "If it makes you happy, I can be as snarky as you wish."

Clint suddenly grew serious. "You shouldn't try to please me. Be who you are. That's what SHIELD is interested in. You, Natalia Romanova, not whoever the hell you pretend to be." Natalia put her elbow on the ledge by the window and rested the side of her face in her palm. She said nothing. "Look, sorry if I overstepped any—"

"No," she interrupted. "I was just thinking. I've never been—I'm not…I don't know how to be 'myself.' I don't know who I am."

"You're Natalia, Russian spy that defected to the United States."

She shook her head and looked at him. "You're right. But I don't want to be Natalia. I don't like Natalia."

Clint looked between her and the road, but there was nothing before them for miles. "Well, if you want to change your name, I guess now's the time to do it."

She dropped her eyes to look at the SHIELD ID in her hands. _Natalia Alianovna Romanova_ , it read. Who could she become? _What_ could she become? "I think," she said, and hesitated, "I think I want to be Natasha Romanoff. It's the Americanized version of Natalia Romanova, and I don't want to be her anymore."

Watching her, Clint smiled. "Well, then, Natasha Romanoff, it's great to meet you."

Natasha smiled.

* * *

She has nightmares about Clint's icy blue eyes. She dreams of him being frozen and lost in the violent Russian winter, killing her _slowly, intimately, and in every way she fears_. Natasha wakes, and dances.


	3. Part Three

Fury and Coulson assigned Barton and Romanoff to be partners. It was only logical and together they became SHIELD's deadliest team. Strike Team Delta, the pair was called.

Clint and Natasha sat on a bench overlooking the Seine, watching couples stroll hand in hand. The mission was complete; they had twelve hours until they left France for New York. "Do you ever wish you were normal?" asked Clint. That was one thing Natasha liked about him: he was blunt to the point of being offensive.

She glared at him. "Wow, Barton. You really know how to make a girl feel special."

He rolled his eyes. "You know what I mean. Like, do you wish you didn't have to worry about arms dealers and plane hijackings and international trade secrets and all that shit? God knows I do."

"Do you?"

"Hell yeah." He paused. "Way to evade the question, kiddo." The glare Natasha gave him in response to the nickname was brutal and ten times worse than the previous glare. "Sorry. Way to evade the question, Romanoff."

"I'm not a child," she huffed.

Clint snorted. "Yeah, and whining about it totally makes your case. You're what, now—sixteen?"

"Twenty-one."

"Right. And that makes me…older than that."

"Thirty-four."

Clint dropped his head. "Do I even want to know how you know that?"

"Probably not." She sat in silence for nearly an entire minute, then said, "Phil gave me your file. And by gave, I mean looked the other way. And by looked the other way, I mean he wasn't in the room. The file made it back to its spot eventually." Natasha shrugged. "And it's not like it was well protected. He leaves important things just sitting out on his desk!"

"My file was sitting right out on his desk." He doesn't even try to hide his disbelief.

For the first time ever, Natasha looked sheepish. "No, but there was a dossier on something that's gonna happen in Baghdad on the thirty-first. Coulson shouldn't leave sensitive materials out for anyone to see."

Clint gave her a pointed look. "Pretty sure Phil's office is not accessible to just 'anyone.' God knows how many laws you broke to get my fucking file."

"Rules were made to be broken."

"And what asshole told you that?"

"You did."

Clint shut up. Natasha gave a tiny laugh, and Clint struggled to keep a straight face, something that happened more often than not with her nowadays. "Right, well, let's stick to federal laws or something we can reasonably defend ourselves with. I don't think it would do either of us any good to get kicked out of SHIELD."

"Whatever," Natasha said, winking at him. She was an entirely different person than who she had been even six months ago. Natalia Romanova was long gone; Natasha Romanoff was quickly making her way to the top of SHIELD's list of valuable assets. "So what are we going to do for the rest of the day? As much as I love sitting on this bench with you, my ass is getting sore."

"That's what she said."

Natasha made a face. "That doesn't even make any fucking sense, Barton."

Shrugging, Clint responded, "It seemed like the appropriate thing to say."

"You're nuts."

"So I've heard." The wink and smile he offered made Natasha want to giggle. Talking to him and being around him was just so easy.

Natasha stood and offered her hand to her partner. "Let's go. Have you ever been to the top of the Eiffel Tower?"

Clint simply stared at her. "Did you seriously just fucking ask me that? Me—SHIELD's top sniper who just happens to see better from a distance. God, that's a stupid question."

"Okay, whatever," Natasha said, folding her arms across her chest and starting to walk away.

"Wait, Nat," Clint called, springing to his feet to follow her. She didn't look at him as he caught up, apologies pouring from his lips. "Nat, I didn't mean it like that. I know you didn't mean it like that."

She stopped in her tracks, looking down at her feet. Natasha did not know why his words (not the worst he'd ever said to her) upset her so much. She prided herself on having skin thick as leather, but his words pierced her like one of his arrows. It made her feel worse, having this weakness. Having him as a weakness.

And as Natasha realized that, she spun and forced herself to look at him. Her posture was still closed, her fingers grasping at her sleeves. "I think I've been compromised."

That was obviously not what Clint was expected her to say. "The op's over. We did great, there's nothing to worry about."

"No," Natasha breathed, feeling shaky and on the verge of tears and damn Natalia Romanova—Natasha Romanoff did not cry. "I think I've been compromised. I can't be impartial anymore."

"Nat," he asked, "where did this come from? Why can't you be impartial?"

Her breath caught. "Be-because—I've never had a friend before, Clint. And now I've fucked it up."

He placed his hands on her shoulders, gently so as not to frighten her; she was still unaccustomed to so much touch, especially that of kindness or concern. "Nat, whatever problem there is, we can fix it. And Coulson will help us, and we can get other help too, if we need it. And if you're worried about me not being your friend anymore, forget it. That's never gonna happen."

Natasha cheeks lifted with the tiniest of smiles but fell seconds later. "It's all my fault, I'm supposed to be able to control this—I can't stop it. When I look at you, all I want is to spend all of my time with you and when we're on a mission I get so high to just be with you and—" She broke her words off and flung her arms around his neck.

Clint was surprised at first; she had never initiated a hug. In fact, had they ever even hugged before?

But then his thoughts stopped because she was kissing him and they were in Paris and—

"Bozhe moy, I'm so sorry," she said, fingers weaving into her hair and pulling tight against her scalp. "My God, Clint, I don't know—"

And then he was kissing her and it was all fine.

Later, they laid in bed and watched Casablanca.

* * *

They sit together at Clint's daughter's ballet recital. He videotapes the entire performance like the proud father he is, and Natasha pinches herself with her nails every time she thinks of how one of the little girls did something wrong. Ballet is her past; this is her future.

But it all could have been hers.

* * *

An IED in Iraq put Clint out for the count four months into his and Natasha's relationship—if it could be called that. She tried not to care, never showed it to anyone but her reflection in the mirror. But that was how Natasha met Clint's ex-wife.

Bobbi Morse and Clint were married for a year and a half soon after Clint first joined SHIELD. They parted amicably and when Bobbi and her current husband, Lance, showed up to visit Clint in the hospital, Bobbi was incredibly kind to Natasha. When Clint was sleeping and Lance went to grab Bobbi a snack, she whispered to Natasha, "The way he looks at you is more than the way he ever looked at me," and winked.

Natasha was called out into the field and placed by Coulson on her first solo mission. When she told Barton (screw protocol) that she was going to Durrës, he groaned. "Are you kidding me? I've been meaning to go there. Duck called Howard owes me money."

"They need to start weaning you off the pain killers."

"I'm being completely serious!"

Natasha laughed and rolled her eyes. "I've gotta go now. Coulson'll be up my ass if I'm late again."

Clint grinned. "That's my job."

"Now I know you're high."

She drove and drove, listening to the nervous chatter of the engineer beside her. The job was to get him out of Iran. He was in his late thirties and kept babbling on about his four children. Instinctively, Natasha wanted to tell him to shut up, but then she thought back to her graduation from the Red Room and directed the words to herself.

The truck slid. "What the hell?" she muttered, turning her head and squinting through her hair and the sandy sun to see black rubber littering the road. How the hell did someone blow out a tire? And then there was another one. "Fuck, fuck, fuck," she gritted her teeth, aware that the nuclear engineer beside her was gripping the sides of the truck with white fingers and screaming bloody murder.

The tires were shot out and they were heading really fast towards a cliff.

She looked back and saw a glint of silver, then they were in free fall.

Natasha blacked out.

Seconds later, she felt dizzy and the light was too bright and they needed to get out of the truck. Mentally checking herself for injuries, she was glad to have no major broken bones, other than a few ribs and several nasty bruises and cuts. Natasha got herself out and crawled to the other side, pulling a knife from her boot to cut the engineer's seatbelt. He was bleeding from a head wound, but was otherwise fine (hopefully; she wasn't a doctor). It took serious maneuvering, but she pulled his chest out of the truck by sheer adrenaline.

A flash of silver in the corner of her eye.

Natasha risked a glance over her shoulder and saw him: the ghost, the Winter Soldier.

He was a legend, a bed time story told by the older girls in the Red Room. She had met him once before, when he and Ivan crossed paths in the Red Room. He taught her how to choke a man twice her size with one hand.

In a sudden rush, Natasha flung her body over the engineer's—protect the asset, protect the asset, protect the asset—and felt a searing pain in her lower abdomen. She cried out in pain—Madame would be so disappointed—and looked down at the engineer. His eyes were open, but unmoving. Blood seeped through his shirt above his heart.

The first thing Natasha thought about were his children.

* * *

She visits Peggy Carter in the hospital once with Steve after they encounter the Winter Soldier in DC. The elderly woman is furious that no one knew that Bucky Barnes was alive. Natasha tries not to take that as a personal failure; she is, after all, the only one who knew him before.

In a distracted moment, Peggy takes Steve's and Natasha's hands and puts them together, and asks when they are going to have children. Steve flushes, embarrassed, and Natasha gently smiles and says, "I'm never going to have children."

* * *

When intel arrived that gave away Ivan Petrovich's location, Natasha was the first to volunteer to take him out. Of course, Clint was assigned to go with her. They had no extraction plan and no official orders, but both Coulson and Fury gave Strike Team Delta the go-ahead.

They flew coach from JFK to Munich, then to Moscow. It was Natasha's first time back in Russia since she defected. She wondered if she would feel sentimental, but it wasn't like she ever had a home there. (Though at night, she held her wrist tightly and shook in the cold bed until Clint put his arm around her and pulled her close.) On the plane, Natasha told Clint the things she hadn't ever said to anyone.

"My first mission was to gather intel from Ivan. I didn't know what that meant," she said softly. Everyone in the seats around them was sleeping. Natasha's feet were curled up beneath her, fingers laced into Clint's, head on his shoulder. "I wasn't the same after."

Natasha did not cry.

Ivan was not expecting her to be sitting at his table, the same table at which it all began eleven years before. "Hello, Ivan," she said in her native tongue, holding out a perfectly manicured hand at the seat across from her. He sat, reaching into his pocket. "Don't even think about it." Natasha pulled the napkin up from her lap, allowing him to see the gun resting gently between her legs.

"I see you still keep your greatest weapon between your legs," he said.

She grinned, a wild thing. "You taught me well."

"Why are you here, little spider?"

His wicked smile and yellow teeth made her shiver and want to retch. Natasha fought the urge to run and curl up into herself and keep anyone from ever touching her again. "To kill you."

"I don't think you will."

"Really?" She raised an eyebrow. "You taught me so many other things."

Clint's voice in her ear: "Come on, Widow, we've got other fish to fry."

"Let's take a walk, Ivan. For old times' sake." He was about to protest, but she looked pointedly at the red dot hovering at his heart. "Good man."

They stood and walked toward the Kremlin. Natasha felt the Russian cold sink into her bones and take her back to a younger, more naive self. Natalia had been so innocent. Natasha kept her gun aimed into his side, a place where she remembered him dragging a knife across her to prove a point.

"Why are you really here, Natalia?" he asked as they turned a corner onto a quiet residential street.

She stopped walking and turned to face him. "I'm going to kill you after you tell me how many of us there are—girls like me."

"Oh, Natalia," he sneered, "there are no others like you. Girls, yes. But none were so successful as our darling Black Widow."

"I am not yours," Natasha growled. "Not anymore."

Without blinking, Natalia raised the gun to his head and pulled the trigger. Natasha turned and walked away.

Clint spoke in her ear, but Natasha ignored him, simply walking to the rendezvous point and straight into his open arms. She didn't cry but shook and nearly hyperventilated. Clint rubbed small circles into her back and waited until she was ready to speak or move.

Time passed.

"I can't tell you how many times I've dreamed about killing him," Natasha whispered. "It feels like a nightmare."

When they made it to the Red Room, Natasha wasn't sure she could walk through those halls. But she made herself be strong and go in alone, promising Clint she would call if she needed backup. This was something Natasha had to do herself.

She put a bullet in the brain of everyone she came across and didn't feel anything. Sometimes she could hear Clint's breathing or muttering as he shook out in the Russian cold. Natasha let instinct drive her to the dormitory. As she suspected, it was empty.

Maybe it was weakness that led Natasha into the dormitory and towards the bed she had slept in nearly every night for fourteen years of her life. She sat down on the thin mattress on the metal frame that groaned under her weight. There was evidence of another girl sleeping in this bed every night, but it was Natalia's. In the back of her mind and down the hall, she heard the familiar singing of dwarves in a mine.

She took five deep breaths and pushed herself to her feet. Natasha closed her eyes and moved.

* * *

Natasha has nightmares about destroying the Red Room. She killed every single person in the building, including the girls and Madame. She had no remorse, no regrets, but Natasha was still plagued. She dreams of fighting Madame in the ballet studio, of taking on six girls at once and coming out victorious, of burning the building down, of walking away and to Clint and her new life.

Steve hears her screaming one night while on an extraction mission in Djibouti. She talks to him, thinking maybe he understands. She leaves out the parts between her and Clint.

* * *

They sat on a beach in North Carolina, watching the storm clouds roll in. "If you could have anything in the world," Natasha began, "what would it be?"

Without slight hesitation, Clint answered, "A family. Not a family in the sense that you and me and Coulson are, though that's great, don't get me wrong. But I just want a real, honest-to-God family with a two-story house and a fence and kids." He chanced a look at her and Natasha fell in love (stop it) with the look in his eyes. "I know it's dumb, but growing up it was just me and my brother and we didn't have a good relationship with our parents. And then they died and it was just me and Barney.

"When I have a family, I'm never gonna let them go," he finished, gripping her hand between his. She smiled at him, afraid to tell him the truth about what they did to her in the Red Room. Natasha knew how much having children meant to him. Her cheeks burned as he said, "I think you'd be a great mom, Nat."

No, I wouldn't. She looked at her toes in the sand. "I want freedom."

* * *

Natasha marks that as the moment things began to fall apart.


	4. Part Four

They were in Budapest, ending a ring of human traffickers and drug dealers with links to the KGB. Fortunately for Natasha and Clint, the men had heard of the Black Widow's single defeat of the entire Red Room operation. Natasha let herself be captured in order to be led right into their command center. It worked, and she was currently struggling to keep her bare toes on the concrete floor as her shoulders were nearly pulled out of socket as she hung from chains attached to the ceiling.

"And I just got a pedicure," she whined to her captors. "I want reimbursement for that."

"Have you ever been bitten by a black widow spider, Black Widow?" asked the man in charge, using heavily accented English. He held a jar of spiders in his hands.

In Russian, Natasha said, "I was raised by them. Where do you think I got my name?"

"So you are not American?" he suggested with an amused smile.

"I'm the Black Widow," she said. The man nodded to a guard on her left, who promptly swung a fist right into her jaw. Natasha winced as her teeth smashed against the inside of her mouth. She spat blood on the ground. "I belong to no one."

"Not even," the man paused for dramatic effect, "to this man whom you claim to love?" With a slight curl of his fingers, the man motioned for a pair of guards to drag Clint out from the hall. He was badly beaten and looked like he might pass out at any given moment. "Don't act coy, Black Widow, we overheard you and this man arguing last night. We are not as stupid as you might have thought."

No, they weren't. How could Clint have been so fucking stupid as to get himself captured? Natasha exhaled; she would have to form a new plan, because she was pretty sure he was doing no strategizing right now.

She thought back on a lesson Ivan had taught her many years before. "Love is for children," she recited.

"Wisely put," said the man. He took Clint's bow from one of the guards and, after holding it reverently for a moment as he studied it, bashed Clint across the head with it so that he fell to his knees, and then smiled as he broke it in half. Natasha twisted her fingers around the chains above her, wishing she could wrap them around the man's neck.

And then she saw Clint blinking quickly. No, in a pattern. She smiled. Morse code; he had a plan.

"What are you grinning about, Black Widow?" demanded the man.

"You're going to die," she laughed. Natasha pulled herself up and swung, kicking the men on either side of her so that they were thrown off their balance. Clint had long since broken out of his restraints and leapt to his feet, pulling out a gun the men had foolishly not confiscated.

They took out the men in the room, and Natasha, once set free, personally snapped the neck of the man who captured her and broke Clint's bow. Only in the silence after the fight did they hear a baby's cries.

Clint and Natasha tried the doors, but each of them was locked. Natasha picked up one of the automatic rifles previously held by a guard and shot at the lock. Clint led the way through the door, and they found themselves in a nursery.

There was a bassinet against the far wall, and inside was a baby girl. Clint shoved his gun into the back of his pants, and lifted the girl out of the crib. "Shh," he said, rocking her.

"How do you know so much about babies?" asked Natasha once the baby had stopped crying.

He looked up at her, then back at the baby. "Cared for a couple when I was a kid. The orphanage was always short-staffed and I was one of the few who didn't hate babies."

"I do," Natasha said without thinking.

"What?"

She was thrown off guard and had to process what she had said. Carefully, she looked at him, preparing to speak. Her thin fingers wrapped around her thinner wrist and she knew she wouldn't sleep that night. She didn't hate babies; she was jealous of them. But she couldn't tell him that. It was too personal, too much. "They cry," she said. "They are loud and ruin things."

"They can't help it."

She knew. But it was easier to lie. And really, this was just the culmination of several disagreements they'd had. The baby started to cry again. "We should get rid of it."

Clint's eyes met hers and she had to keep herself from cringing at the betrayal she saw in his. "How can you even say that?"

She looked away from him, towards the door. "It's a liability. I've killed children before." An accident, but still true. "We'll never get out of here alive if we have to take care of a baby."

He frowned. "Fine. You get out of here, and I'll worry about her."

Except when necessary, Clint didn't speak to Natasha again until they met up with Coulson. "We'll give the girl a good home," said Coulson once they were on the helicarrier.

"If it's all the same to you, sir," Clint said, adjusting the pink blanket around the girl, "I think I know where to take her. I recently reconnected with a childhood friend and I think she'd be a great mom. Better than anyone else I know."

Natasha tried and failed not to take it personally.

Things weren't the same after that.

* * *

She spends Christmas with Clint and Laura, happier for them than she ever thought she could be. And when Lila turns seven, Auntie Nat goes to Budapest and buys the girl a set of matryoshka dolls from a store a few blocks away from the building Lila was found in.

Clint smiles at Natasha, and she knows he has long forgiven her for the horrible things she said.

* * *

She was having a girls night with Maria and Bobbi when Clint's new girlfriend accidentally came up. The other women tiptoed around the subject until Natasha pressed, "It's fine. He and I ended things nearly a year ago. I'm happy for him." Even if she'd barely spoken a word to him outside of work.

Maria and Bobbi exchanged a look, and visibly relaxed. "Well, they broke up. So it doesn't matter anyway."

And it didn't, because when Natasha sat next to Clint on their flight to Caracas, she saw him browsing wedding rings on the internet. "You're going to propose," she said softly; it wasn't a question.

He looked at her. "Yeah," he responded quietly. "No one knows. Not even Coulson, though I'll tell him. It's for Laura's safety. She has no family and we decided that because of my line of work, it'd be better for her and Lila to go off the grid. Fury's wiped all evidence of her off my record. And," he paused, "if you don't mind, Nat, I kinda want you to be my best man—well, woman."

For the first time in a year, Natasha smiled and actually meant it. "I doubt Laura wouldn't want—"

"Nat," he interrupted, "Laura doesn't care. She'd be fucking honored to have you as a sister. You're my best friend. You're gonna be in our lives."

"I've never had a family," she said. "I don't know what to do."

"Just be yourself, Nat," Clint reassured her, bumping her shoulder with his. "Besides, Coulson's gonna be officiating, and I gotta have a best woman. Well, if she says yes."

Natasha smiled at him. "She will. And Clint…I'm sorry. I've been a bitch."

Clint smiled back at her, taking her hand in his. "Me, too. Are we okay?"

She nodded. "We're okay."

* * *

She wakes with a jolt, a scream dying in her throat. She lives alone for this very reason, despite Tony and Pepper's best efforts to get her to move into the Tower.

Clint's icy blue eyes remind her of the murderous frost of a Russian winter.

She pulls out her phone and, without thinking, Facetimes him. It rings and rings and she knows he's getting out of bed so he doesn't wake Laura. They're in the aftermath of Sokovia and she knows he doesn't want to leave his wife and their newborn son (she's still bitter it wasn't a girl named after her, but she supposes Quicksilver is a good enough alternate).

His face appears. "You okay?" he asks, yawning.

Natasha looks at his eyes. "I am now."

* * *

She waited for the water to boil, and hefted herself up onto the counter. Dangling her feet, she stared at her toes, still callused from the Red Room. Her very being was still callused from the Red Room. But like any callus, her skin was thick and strong. She was no longer raw and bleeding like a blister.

She had sacrificed much for others and lost herself in the process. The frost had thawed and spring had come. She was free.

Natasha stared at her toes, and tried not to forget.


	5. Afterword

Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring) is a ballet written by Igor Stravinsky for the 1913 Parisian season of the Ballet Russes. Stravinsky was a Russian composer who lived much of his life in France and Switzerland with his family. During WWI, Stravinsky lived in Switzerland and didn't return to Russia until the 1960s. He moved to the United States (like many Eastern European composers) just before WWII, where he lived the remainder of his life.

The Rite of Spring is based on pagan myths about spring coming to prehistoric Russia. In order to appease the gods and thaw winter, a virgin must be sacrificed. In the ballet, a girl is chosen and after accepting her fate, she dances herself to death.

The 1913 premiere caused riots because the piece was so abstract and violent. Until 1987, the original choreography (by Diaghilev) was thought to be lost, but after careful study, the Joffrey Ballet was able to recreate the original production. Their rendition of Le Sacre can be viewed on YouTube.

Walt Disney included Le Sacre in Fantasia, animated with dinosaurs (which is pretty fun).

The music can be unpleasing if you are not familiar with 20th century atonality. (I'm a music student at university and this is sort of my life.) However, the piece will really grow on you.

I chose to base this work on Le Sacre for several reasons. We know that Natalia was Russian and a dancer. Personally, I see her story as similar to the sacrificial maiden's: not having a choice in life or death. There is a part in this when Natasha compares herself to winter and Clint to spring. We know that Clint saved Natalia. I like to see him as thawing her heart (not to sound like Olaf from Frozen).

In regards to the Clint/Natasha relationship, I really like the two of them together. BUT I also respect Clint/Laura way too much to disregard it. Hence, this was born. Natasha's decision to "let Clint go" (while partly inspired by [SPOILERS] Amy and Rory's almost-divorce in Doctor Who) was a sort of sacrifice like that in Le Sacre. I tried to place little hints throughout the entire piece that implied that Clint always wanted a family. Natasha couldn't give that to him, and Laura could. Because Natasha loved him, she wanted him to be happy, and lied to let him be happy. Whether you agree with that or not, I think it is completely in-character for Natasha, who I see as being more selfless and self-sacrificial than she realizes (like the virgin in Le Sacre).

I do hope that you have enjoyed this, and perhaps found an appreciation for Igor Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps.

Thank you!


End file.
